This year's Summer Treasure Hunt has come to a close, and my kids are upstairs playing with their new stuff right now. This year's new stuff: Max got a Green Lantern TPB and collector's action figure for his set, Abby got two new Judy Moody books, and they got some Go-Gos to share, which they still do very successfully.

CLUE 1: 10:00am - both kids are dressed and have had breakfast, and they get the first clue, sealed in an envelope with a Roman numeral one on it, it contains this poem with a riddle in it leading them to a Wizard of Oz DVD box.

This clue is a riddle, wrapped inside a poem, so pay you both strictest attention; In our house we watch movies, lots, too numerous to mention. In one, there's a man from Nebraska, who has a big flying machine, and he helps out some travelers, kind of, while hiding out in a city of green. When you figure it out, find the box, both of you, and inside is the second big clue.

CLUE 2: was a Klingon-looking substitution cypher, very simple - "Rg'h lpzb gl vzg nzxzilmr & xsvvhv rm gsv yzgsgfy." This is, of course, the phrase, "It's okay to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub," which led my kids to this book, a favorite of both of them. Abby's the one who nailed which book this was in, after Max completed the cypher.

CLUE 3: Found in the book, was this: "Here there be tigers, guns and fruit and seeds / you've probably seen it 100 times,but now it's got something you need." This led them to this Dali print in the downstairs bathroom, which had a crossword puzzle taped to the back of it.

CLUE 4: Solving the crossword puzzle. This had some highlighted letters, which ultimately, when unscrambled, spelled out two words - "CHET" and "ATTIC." Meaning that they had to go up in the attic and look for the picture of this guy we're calling Chet on account of he's probably related to someone we know but we don't know his name for real, and he looks like a Chet to us.

CLUE 5: On the back of Chet - a rebus clue and a series of names and numbers: 359.4 SYMONDS, 634 KOEPPEL, 643 BINSACCA, 795.43 BARRY. The rebus told them that they had to go to the library downtown, and the rest was books that they had to look up. To the library! After lunch. We stopped for lunch here, I think; watermelon and leftover lasagna.

CLUE 6: Okay, now to the library! The four books are about Naval aviation, single-player card games, swimming pools and bananas - all things that will remind the kids of C's dad, their Papa. Once they'd found all four and put it together, it was on to his house!

CLUE 7: At his house, he handed them the first trivia clue (and orange sodas):

I'm a portable sausage product, invented in the northern US in the 1920s. (This led them to the box of microwaveable corn dogs in the freezer where they found - )

Against all enemies, add your ages together (The Tom Clancy book, Against All Enemies, page 16)

Max hates it and insults it, but you both like to hide in the clothes, they have something you need there. (Wal-Mart, which Max calls Hell-Mart, and where we rarely go.)

CLUE 8: The Wal-Mart customer service counter, where they have to claim a shovel that I've previously purchased and placed on will-call. This interaction had to be executed by them without help. The shovel had the final proper clue on it: "DIAL: 1. A plate or disk with markings or figures for indicating or registering some measurement or a number, usually by means of a pointer. 2. A rotatable disk or knob used for regulating a mechanism, such as tuning or governing volume on a TV, radio or other electronic device. 3. A family that you know." This led them to the house of friends of ours, whose surname is "Dial." Without quotes. That's really their name.

CLUE 9: They had to play "hot or cold" (sort of) with Max's friend, who had hidden the treasure map in a pot underneath one of the counters in the kitchen. Once they got the map, they had to use it outside.

CLUE 10: The map itself, a crudely mocked up illustration of the street, two houses and treeline, along with the traditional X marking the spot where they dug down about four inches in a planter in the backyard to the Tupperware container wrapped in plastic, tape, foil, tape, a garbage bag and packing tape, containing the treasure, which Max hacked into with his Swiss Army knife while we were eaten by mosquitoes. By 4:40 or so the thing was all over, having consumed the better part of the day.

The summer draws to a close, and I become mildly melancholy. I'm glad I saved this one for more towards the end of things. What I want to hear now is A) whether anyone's parents ever did anything like this for them, and B) what you might have done / will do for your kids along these lines.

Last weekend, I went with my daughter on her First Official Girl Scouts Camping Trip.

We drove for about 1/2 an hour outside of Murfreesboro to this quaint little campsite hugged by mountains and hills. It had been raining for a couple of days before we got there in the late afternoon of last Saturday, so the path was basically a strip of mud and gravel. It started in with light, steady rain again within about 15 minutes of our unloading my car.

At the relative center of the site was a large cabin/meeting hall with a communal bathroom, kitchen, and giant main room, all furnished in hardwoods. Abby slept here with her fellow scouts, so the first night there the activity was adults outside talking about the economy, first grade girls, their shared elementary school and the overall state of our troop while the girls and their leaders did crafts, played games, danced and generally had pre-slumber party-type fun inside. I was exposed to Kidz Bop for the 1st time. Dinner was pizza (from Severe Gastrointestinal Distress, my favorite), and the meeting hall was air conditioned. Very little actual camping in the camping, but hey - they're little. This rationale would be repeated throughout the excursion.

At 9:45 or so, on account of being a guy, I was compelled to excuse myself (after goodnight hugs and kisses) about a quarter mile up the soupy trail in the rain to the platform tents. My campsite had four of these platform tents (exactly what it sounds like) with a little pavilion equipped with electric lights, picnic tables and a fully operational bathroom. So not exactly roughing it either. I decided first to claim my tent, so I dropped off my stuff, moved the cots (rated for average Girl Scout weight) around and opened the flys of the tent, disturbing roughly 75 spiders. Yes, I counted - there's nothing else to do in the woods. I had that Raiders of the Lost Ark moment when my arms were covered in spiders. I brushed them off and moved on with my life, reading Christopher Moore's brilliant new book and smoking Mexican stogies with sodas until about 1:30 or so. Most of the spiders had cleared out by then, but I did get to listen to coyotes, frogs and crickets all night, and one angry raccoon let me know that I should really drop some food instead of just my flashlight.

Got up with the dawn and killed an hour or three. Helped make breakfast for the girls, and then we hiked, picking up limbs and trash off of the path. Abby got to make her first tie-dyed shirt, we grilled hot dogs and marshmallows over a fire I made with wet wood. There was much more playing, the story of the Haunted Latrine, and general camp cleaning, and we were out of there. Abby said she had "90% fun" citing only all the hike sweat, banging her head the previous evening, and some mild homesickness as small complaints. She is also quick to point out that this is not her first camping trip, as she is a veteran of camping not only with her parents at the zoo, but also on separate occasions with Uncle Brian and Meredith.

Every Summer, I set up both a treasure hunt and a photo scavenger hunt for my kids. The treasure hunt is exactly what it sounds like - they have to follow annoying clues that I write, running them all over town until they dig up some toys and books that they want - and the photo scavenger hunt you probably figured out too; they get a list of things that they must take pics of in order to succeed. The shot to the left is last year's "something rusted." I just gave them this year's list, and I thought I'd share it with you in case, you know, you're on it or something. Some of the list items won't make sense to you, but rest assured that my kids know what all this stuff is. Also, you can play the home version by printing this out and taking a bunch of pictures! Yeah, but you have to send me a dollar to cover licensing fees and such.

SUMMER 2012 Photo Scavenger Hunt

1. A helmet (on one of your heads)2. an animal's tongue3. running water4. someone sleeping (really)5. more than 36 eggs in one place6. a water tower7. a railroad track8. a Lego house with a superhero in it9. 4 blonde people in one picture10. a hubcap (up close)11. 3 live flowers in one shot12. Allison Dial13. Emily Walker14. Scales Elementary School15. Rockvale Middle School16. fresh bread17. a political yardsign18. three kids you don't know (1-3 shots)19. a skull (real or fake)20. a purple dinosaur21. someone dressed like a superhero22. Papa's truck with him in it23. Dad without his glasses24. Mom outside on her Kindle25. the camera26. something red27. something orange28. something yellow29. something green30. something blue31. something purple32. something pink33. Eric P. & Diane (one shot)34. Doctor Who35. a happy clown36. a scary clown37. a disturbing clown38. Abby on her bike39. Max on his bike40. a bag of chips41. red soda in a cup42. the inside of our mailbox with mail in it43. the garbage truck44. a dumpster behind a Waffle House45. Abby with no more than 10 stuffed animals46. an object in flight47. a bird48. Max dancing to a favorite song49. Katie Muncie50. the Guinness bird in the kitchen51. a building more than 100 years old52. watermelon insides53. a peace symbol54. a scary bug55. a creek56. Captain America on TV57. something inherited from a family member58. a construction site59. a pile of laundry60. a statue (not of a person)61. a recharge unit for electric cars62. melted ice cream63. a STOP sign64. a gravestone with an eight on it65. a cannon at a battlefield66. the Oaklands historic mansion67. a cake68. a hospital69. five different colored cars in one shot70. two non-TN license plates in one shot71. Nathan Shotsman72. someone wearing wings73. a burning candle74. feet in the fountain at the library75. three bottles of mustard in one shot76. Horriblina and Chet in one shot77. very old carpet78. more than four balls in one place79. Max's SAVY certificate80. Riverdale High School81. a wedding dress82. either Abby or Max behind a steering wheel83. Meredith and Sandy (one shot)84. Chelle & Wess (one shot)85. something spray-painted red or white86. Abby in a suitcase87. someone wearing a shirt with a band name88. someone hanging from a bar89. graffiti 90. a stranger who has agreed to have their picture taken because you've explained to them about this scavenger hunt.

Yesterday, I very nearly cried over a fish. My voice broke, my composure was completely gone, and in that one moment, I was completely enraged at the raw injustice of what was happening. It's safe to say that I lost it a little.

Once, I went to Bowman, North Dakota for a job. At the time, Bowman had a population of 1300 or so and a municipal airport that was closed due to snow, so we had to drive in from Bismarck. We did our little job, and on the second night there, a heavy snowfall and the combined errors of a hotel staff and a snowplow driver conspired to keep me trapped in my room for something like 30 hours. I don't do trapped. I had books about Nazis and aliens, but I ripped through those pretty quick, and the only TV station I could get was playing old X-Files episodes on some kind of marathon interrupted by only news and commercials. Towards the end of trapped, I cleared the snow from in front of my door with the side table and threw all of my furniture that wasn't bolted down out into the parking lot. Left to my own devices, it seems, my personal experiential reality (and its component responses) is non-compatible with uniform normative standards of societally acceptable behavior.

So, lost it, yeah.

The air conditioning in my home has been out now since early morning Wednesday (?) and this simple appliance failure has derailed my plans in a huge shockwavey way. I have cancelled plans, remade plans, and sweated for hours on end. My digestion is fried, because I'm drinking so much more than I'm eating, my head hurts a lot, and my eyes feel like they're kind of just floating around. My thoughts have been consumed by dollar signs as I constantly do arithmetic to see if I'm going to be able to afford the inevitable repairs. I briefly thought I might be having some sort of panic attack yesterday, but now I think it was just anxiety over bullshit. I have moved ice and fans and water up and down the stairs, put blankets and curtains over windows with nails and thumbtacks and spent the day tethered to my house phone so I could be here when technicians called. I have slowly lost touch - windows insulated from the sun - with the passage of time. I sent my family away - they're with my father-in-law - so that they wouldn't have to deal with the heat. I only stayed last night for the dog and the fish.

Rick died. My son had three Comet goldfish, Rick, Spot, and Demon. Spot's four and a 1/2 years old, Rick and Demon were slightly younger by months, from the 2nd batch purchased after Spot's original companion, Blur, bought it swimming backwards into the filter. Max and I have put an incredible amount of effort into reading about fish, asking people who know more about fish, feeding them, cleaning their habitat, moving them twice (always an adventure) with this idea that goldfish who live more than a couple of weeks are on fragile, eggshell, cracked glass borrowed time. When Rick died while Max was away and the upstairs of the house is 92 degrees, it's hard not to feel responsible. Alone in the house and already in a state of running about trying to preserve things that don't do well with heat, this seemed so unfair, and I lost it. No one likes to call their kid up on the phone and break his heart a little. When you're 10, three years and change is a long time to have had a fish.

We have decided that Rick will not be flushed in the typical fish burial fashion. He will be buried in the backyard in an appropriate container. The A/C's supposed to be getting fixed today, $500 or so for a leak fix, vaccum of the ducts, and a recharge - much less than it could have been. I have spent most of my time sweating and watching episodes of Torchwood instead of planning the details of my wife's birthday this weekend, or reading productively or even blogging, which would have been a good move, probably. Hopefully, today will normalize my fragile little shared reality and restore a climate that will make hugging a possible and desirable activity.

The best part of yesterday was when the thunderstorm broke and I stood outside for a minute or two and had a little Shawshank moment - the rain part, not the rape part - and then got the news from the A/C guy that I wasn't going to be wiped out financially by the repairs, and then I took my dog out for McFood. I'm hoping that the best part of today will be my little house put back in order, cooled, and with the family in it.

Recently, this was posted on The Facebook where I could see it (I'm sure it's been around for a while, it's just that I'm just now seeing it), and I made the mistake of attempting to become involved in a discussion about it without first realizing that there would be no discussion, simply people who want to hit their kids half-assedly justifying their positions.

Argument one for spanking:"I got beat as a kid and I turned out okay." Well. You turned out as a droning punk who needs to use a proxy to belittle other people on Facebook and who thinks it's okay to hit kids, apparently, so that's debatable at best. If you want to raise kid-hitting assholes, then go forth and spank, I guess.

Argument two for spanking: The Biblical One, which I have previously mentioned that I will no longer respect or refute, because it is a waste of time and a disservice to breath and life to pretend that people who are using a 2000-year-old aphorism of dubious origin as a parenting guide are using compassion or thought to raise their kids, so fuck them in the spanked ass with a switch, I haven't got time for their invisible friend justification.

That's it. That's what they've got; these two arguments are the two horns on the bullhead of kid-whacking rationale as espoused by people who are apparently dumbfucked in the skull parts enough to be outwitted by children. Seriously, as I mentioned in the Facebook thread, the day that I can't outthink my kids, they're raised. These are the people who hit their kids because they want to, and connections between that ritualized humiliation and adult erotic spanking be damned. They don't care that there's no proof that it really works, they've got the Bible and a ridiculous "I'm okay," argument, and that's all they need. Two things: the pain and humiliation cocktail of traditional spanking is fucked up; physical correction is largely unnecessary and should be relegated to whacks to stop them hurting themselves (swatting a kid's hand away from knives and fire, for example) and genial, not-hard, expected cuffs around the back of the head. Corrections without the punishment, so they do right because they're supposed to and not because they're afraid of you.

I got switched, belted, paddled and spanked. I was smacked in the face by authority more than once, too, because I had (have) a very big fucking mouth. You know what happens when someone bigger and older than you hits you? It changes your relationship to them forever. You internalize a giant "fuck you" for them and anyone else who thinks they can bully you into correct behavior, and that expresses itself in as many ways as there are children. Spanking: another example of traditions being used by those who can't think their way out of anything.

While dealing with these people who you wish didn't have children, I happened upon another ongoing discussion between childless people tired of justifying why they don't have children. Wow. I didn't even know that this was a thing, but there was a whole opinion piece in the Times and everything.

Okay, if you're one of the people that I know and you don't have kids? I don't care. I don't care why or anything. It's totally up to you, seriously. Great if you have 'em, great if you don't. I mean, I'm glad somebody's having some; we need as many evolutionary chances as we can get, but I cannot fathom wanting to be involved in someone else's personal affairs like that. "Whassmatta, Melman? Prong busted? Where's a passel of rugrats leaping out of your wife's cub-hatch?" I hate people on both sides of this one, though: You've got your invasive, noisy prick asking you about your personal decisions, and then you've got people defending their rationales. If you say anything other than "noneya" when asked why you don't have kids, you walked into the trap. Enjoy the trap, stay a while.

Fuck. Just when I think the wheel-spinners have wasted all the oxygen they can...

Like a lot of people, I am unhappy with the latest product from the Smith Entertainment Group, Willow Smith, and her "song," Whip My Hair. (Having procured the Wikilink for her, I see that we just got another new song from her last Friday. Woo.) Willow (dressed here in her Mobutu Sese Seko halloween costume) has excreted an anthem that's inescapable if you are in public places where children are expected to make noise, but I remember Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Britney Spears, NKOTB, and many others used to be the same way. Age has taught me to breathe, focus, wait, and turn up better music.

For the most part, the "song" is indistinguishable from any other pop crap except for its wailing repetitive chorus. (Think how many current songs you can say that about.) My son hates it; it's like Kryptonite to him. My daughter seems to take it either way - she will sing along if she hears it. You figure to her, though, Willow is a seasoned performer twice her age.

This morning in the car on the way to school, we attempted to come up with some anodyne for this musical wound in our collective minds, and so we started in on the classic "variations on a theme" joke. I will give you what we had, and then you add some. (You should know this by now - I'm not explaining it next time.)

Remember that big hoopla a couple of weeks ago about the 10th anniversary of 9/11? That thing where everyone in the nation - and possibly most of the world - took a moment and thought about where they were and what they were doing 10 years ago? I did that, too. But I'm doing it again today, 17 days later, because it was 17 days after 9/11 that my wife gave birth to our first child, Max. And today he's ten.

Staggering. Literally. Sometimes I just stagger about, enjoying how the furniture feels when I bump into it. Then I reassemble it with wood glue and allen wrenches and tungsten.

Max is in the fifth grade, which he does not like as much as the fourth grade (his teacher last year was a hard act to follow), and we have recently seen a bit of a grade slip due to various factors, but we're working on it. He's musically inclined, singing in the school Chorus, taking steel drum classes and piano lessons. He's just moved into his new room, and as much as he hated the move and the very idea of it, he seems to have settled in the new room quite nicely. He has a workbench now with tools and electronics and things to work on, piles of books and tape recorder, wire, rope, rocks, and 'scopes of various varieties. He still reads constantly; Big Nate, Rick Riordan, mythology, 39 Clues, Wimpy Kid, fables and stuff about sorcery and alchemy and monsters. His favorite superheroes right now are Hulk, Thor, Green Lantern, Iron Man and Batman.

He makes up intricate imagination games for any he plays with, and is fiercely competitive at any game he's not making up as you're playing it. He makes a lot of notes and small comic books on Post-its. He sings in the shower, and makes superhero noises. Good acoustics. He's sensitive and moody and easily over-stimulated by people noises. He gets sucked into television still, no matter what's on. He's lately been most interested in Phineas and Ferb still, but also Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends from the early 80s, and also Voltron, Jimmy Neutron and the Fairly Oddparents. He's fun to hang out with still, but for different reasons. He loves his sister unless she's whiny, and feels very protective of her. He likes sleeping with the dog in his room.

We're supposed to be bowling and doing laser tag and stuff tonight, with cake and pizza and stuff well into the weekend, so you all have ample chances to wish Max a happy birthday. And stuff.

Originally, he felt that we baited and switched him on the actual houses, as the 1st one we looked at was a little pricey for the square feet and got snaked out from under us anyway, so we turned and quickly made an offer on the one we're supposedly closing on today. When he saw the new house during inspection a couple of weeks ago, this evaporated a little bit, but got replaced slowly with a moody "I hate moving." This, at least, is common ground. I damn well hate moving too. But this is our least disruptive move since 1996 - we're leaving neither zip code or school district. After a pointing this out and a few more conversations, I have found common ground at last with the boy - he's going to draw up a contract stating that his mom and I will not move again for three (3) years minimum, and preferably five (5). We will sign it, and in return, he has promised to have a slightly better - and if failing that, quieter - attitude about this move.

My apartment, which I have striven for a year and half to keep in a very clean and tidy state during my time not working, and in which I have spent a lot of daytime hours teaching my daughter, doing art projects, learning to cook and playing, is now exploded and boxed and disorganized. Tonight I amused myself for five minutes doing my Gwenyth Paltrow impression where I put my head in a box. Great fun. Almost all of our books are packed and I fully intend to move all my comics to the new place by my fucking self just so I don't have to hear bitching again this time. I think Matt, Jimbo & Lyla might be the only people to move them and not bitch and complain, and Jimbo gave them a special ride. I miss moving with a bunch of my friends around. The Amish fireline moves were some of my favorite times together, and it saddens me that they're no longer practical.

Max started his second full week of the 5th grade yesterday, and Abby gets phased into K'garten this week with two 1/2 days and two full days, starting today. We close today, C starts grad classes this weekend and her chorus has its kickoff for the season - also this weekend. I start school at MTSU at the end of this month, and my nervous breakdown is scheduled for shortly after that. I keep waiting for the thing that will jump up and ruin everything, or the detail I miss that causes chaos. We're going to be moving slowly over the next couple of weeks, because we can. Mostly just me and a truck. Further bulletins as events warrant.

My lovely wife is asleep on the couch, having crashed 26 minutes into her Tivo'd soap. Abby's been out since about nine-thirty or so, the dog is flat on the living room floor, and Max is in his top bunk reading the Far Side.

I got up today at 5:30 and showered, after which I took a moment to sit quietly and ruminate on the importance of sitting quietly. At 6:30 I awakened others and threw breakfast and clean clothes at them, packing lunches for Max and C. I took the dog out, and she obediently evacuated, perhaps sensing my impatience. At 7, I successfully started the car that burned blisters on my right hand yesterday when my ancient jumper cables (kid left a door ajar) broke and flamed out. By 7:32, Max was involved in his first day of fifth grade. If you remember when Max was born, take a minute here.

After that, I was obliged to spend some time touring the school so that the shock of the Kindergarten phase-in wouldn't upset Abby, who has been waiting since last year to go to Kindergarten and was recently informed by the city school system that there's an assessment test followed by an open house, followed in turn by some half days and that the first really full day of Kindergarten isn't until the 18th, which is two days after we close on our new house. Yay. So we toured the library and gym and cafeteria and Kindergarten rooms and played word games and such until 9 or so.

We grabbed fast food breakfast then, and got some toenail trimmers for the dog. Put some gas in the car. Abby helped.

Picked Max up from the half-first-day of school at eleven, which of course requires a 10:40 arrival in the car line, which is from Hell. Skipped the damned thing entirely and just went and stood in the lobby. Got Max, quizzed him about his day, got the details you can get from a 10-year-old, and took them both to see their mom at her school, where she's inservicing with no kids as yet. After a fitful and distracted conversation, took the kids to Tennessee's only Culver's, and taught them the soup spoon joke. We had a great time, and annoyed the other diners. Had this weird synethetic - I think - experience with cashier's voice and kept getting her to talk more so I keep having it. Curds.

Checked B&N, got my father-in-law's birthday gift. Got trapped by giant rainstorm for over an hour. Could not find book recommended by Jon Broad, played dollies with Abby, and watched a girl crush on Max in the kid's section. She arranged toys to spell his name, then was really sketchy and moongazy. Max also won a mango/orange smoothie in a Harry Potter trivia contest by answering a question about Quidditch. Had to reconnect battery cables on car in rainstorm, stopped home, took the dog out again. Freshened, checked emails, left house to go back to school at 2:40 for Abby's K'garten assessment.

She aced it, demonstrating advanced knowledge, outgoing personality, scientific inquiry (TEACHER: "Is this butterfly symmetrical? ABBY: "I don't know; let's fold it in half and find out.") and excellent motor skills. She was bursting with pride, and so was I. C met us at what will soon be the kids' school and we re-grouped at home so Abby could de-brief, which she did, at length. Watched Matt Damondefend teachers on the Internet and tapped out for ten minutes during Shark Week. Had a graphics layout meeting with a customer in a mall food court at 6pm.

Went really well, the meeting - couldn't find the Jon Broad book in Books A Million, either. Stopped briefly at the grocery for one more dinner ingredient only to find that everyone ate whilst I was out. We watched the new Phineas & Ferb movie together, and then I packed a few boxes while C read to the kids. Abby fell asleep on the couch and was easily moved. Max went much later.

Now it is 11:11. There is always going to be too much to do now. I will attempt to sleep soon.

So I'm watching some Inspector Gadget episodes with the kids while C recovers from a minor throat thing (MINOR - no freaking out required) and Max and I have been talking about various jokes and technical aspects of the show, and then this happened:

ME: When I was your age, we used to argue at the school lunch table about what happened to Gadget's stuff when the van changed into a police car.